The Gosper glider gun is the first known gun, and indeed the first known finite pattern with unbounded growth, found by Bill Gosper in November 1970. It consists of two queen bee shuttles stabilized by two blocks. It is the smallest known gun, and, as it can be constructed using only eight gliders, it has the smallest known glider synthesis of any gun. It can be destroyed completely by five gliders, as shown below.

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Inline inverter

An inline inverter is a reaction with the Gosper glider gun in which it eats an incoming glider and thus can be used to invert the presence or absence of gliders in a period 30 stream, as in a NOT gate, with the output glider stream being in the same direction as the input glider stream.[1]